Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Launching Points

Three years ago my oldest daughter, Jennifer, moved into a small house in DownEast Maine. The former resident, an elderly man and friend to Jennifer, moved to an assisted living situation a few miles away. Single all his life, his only close "family" were cats - all four dozen of them. Months before the move Jennifer captured, transported, and helped pay for all their neutering and kitty health checkups. She proved herself to be trustworthy so he asked her to care for his "family" while he was away.

Usually I visit Jennifer during wild blueberry season in August but that year I drove up in June. She needed help cleaning up the house and no one does it better than MOM. All the cleaning solutions and equipment were lined up on the porch. One step into the front room and I froze...the trash, the dirt, the kitty litter, the smell, the trash, the dirt,... Just then a local priest pulled in with a borrowed pickup truck to haul the couch to the dump. The empty couch space became our launching point. We scrubbed the floor three separate times in order to remove the litter dust and dirt. As we cleaned the first space, we filled it with washed, non-trash items. The day to clean the house turned into the day to clean the front room. Since that beginning, Jennifer completed the whole house. With paint inside and out, a few canvases hung on the walls, she is settled in. And all the kitties call her "Auntie Jennifer".

A short while ago I decided that changes needed to be made in my life. This blog is a record of some of my thinking about change. Today I'm overwhelmed and standing just inside the door of the "front room" looking for a clue to the launching point.

LESSON: The launching point isn't as important as the launch.

PS. Jennifer only has one dozen cats now (briefly including Ralph, a young bobcat who spent a couple months last winter under her shed). You guessed it. She already had a cat named Bob. Anyone need a cat?

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